Mega-Thread: Mueller investigation

[Gorsameth]

Mueller explicitly reported to the AG that his decision not to indict was not based in the policy debate over whether or not a sitting President can be indicted.

Barr's words.
Muellers own words directly contradict this. Go read it yourself, the introduction to Volume 2.

First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions " in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers." 1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC ' s legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorialjurisdiction.

[rda]

On a different topic, I finished vol 1 of the report, nothing much found. And in the beginning of the vol 2, there is this text regarding the "obstruction of justice" that seems so beloved by some:

"Three basic elements are common to most of the relevant obstruction statutes: (1) an obstructive act; (2) a nexus between the obstructive act and an official proceeding; and (3) a corrupt intent."

Later, it expands:

"The word "corruptly" provides the intent element [...] and means acting "knowingly and dishonestly" or "with an improper motive"."

There are also words like "consciousness of wrongdoing".

I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that demonstrating an actual intent to obstruct justice, eg, acting "knowingly and dishonestly" in order to "prevent justice from being duly administered" would be rather hard. Particularly in the case of Trump, who - according to the same exact media - is acting weirdly, compulsively and without thinking.

So, I don't know, but even making a case that Trump was obstructing justice seems a rather tall order to me so far. Even that.

[Stormdash]

Barr's words.
Muellers own words directly contradict this. Go read it yourself, the introduction to Volume 2.

Barr's words... about a report that nobody on Mueller's team disputed a single redaction, that the White House didn't assert executive privilege over a word of. You guys are free get sweaty to Seth Abramson's twitter meltdown while looking at a picture of Louise Mensch if you like, but this is done-zo. If the goal here is to get Trump's reelection north of 350 electoral votes, by all means, keep going with this, though.

[Gorsameth]

Without actual collusion charges, the obstruction charges contextualize into the President saying "this is bullshit" in varying forms on social media, which isn't illegal or even really immoral in this context. I know you won't fathom this until you get the whole unredacted report - which is almost certainly an atom bomb of bad for the people who tried to conduct this coup - but I suspect this is where it's headed.

Read the report. There is a laundry list of Obstruction examples and none of them are Trump saying "this is bullshit" on twitter

including but not limited to
Asking Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn
Firing Comey
Asking Sessions to unrecuse and take over the investigation
Ordering Sessions to change the scope of the investigation
Ordering McGahn to fire Mueller
Ordering McGahn to forget he ordered him to fire Mueller

[Gorsameth]

On a different topic, I finished vol 1 of the report, nothing much found. And in the beginning of the vol 2, there is this text regarding the "obstruction of justice" that seems so beloved by some:

"Three basic elements are common to most of the relevant obstruction statutes: (1) an obstructive act; (2) a nexus between the obstructive act and an official proceeding; and (3) a corrupt intent."

Later, it expands:

"The word "corruptly" provides the intent element [...] and means acting "knowingly and dishonestly" or "with an improper motive"."

There are also words like "consciousness of wrongdoing".

I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that demonstrating an actual intent to obstruct justice, eg, acting "knowingly and dishonestly" in order to "prevent justice from being duly administered" would be rather hard. Particularly in the case of Trump, who - according to the same exact media - is acting weirdly, compulsively and without thinking.

So, I don't know, but even making a case that Trump was obstructing justice seems a rather tall order to me so far. Even that.

The guy is on tape saying he fired Comey to make the Russia investigation go away.
Proving intent isn't going to be hard.

[the game]

Can we close this now that the mueller investigation is officially a conspiracy theory?

[Gorsameth]

Barr's words... about a report that nobody on Mueller's team disputed a single redaction, that the White House didn't assert executive privilege over a word of. You guys are free get sweaty to Seth Abramson's twitter meltdown while looking at a picture of Louise Mensch if you like, but this is done-zo. If the goal here is to get Trump's reelection north of 350 electoral votes, by all means, keep going with this, though.

If you don't want to read the report that is not my problem.
Muellers own words and reasons are in there for you to see.

[rda]

The guy is on tape saying he fired Comey to make the Russia investigation go away.
Proving intent isn't going to be hard.

I don't think it's that simple. The intent has to be to hide something. What is this something? What was worth hiding? The report found pretty little that would be worth hiding - the vol 1 does not contain much. And if it is unclear whether there was anything worth hiding, Trump firing Comey and saying that he did so to make the Russia investigation go away is just Trump firing Comey because he thinks the Russia investigation is a waste of time and being tired of people trying to dig dirt on him where there is none.

[Sky High]

Can we close this now that the mueller investigation is officially a conspiracy theory?

It’s not, so shut the fuck up.

[Stormdash]

If you don't want to read the report that is not my problem.
Muellers own words and reasons are in there for you to see.

I'm sure they'll be great comfort to you during all the nothing that is ever going to happen on this going forward. Other than possibly a quixotic act of political self-harm in the form of a failed impeachment attempt anyway.

[Gorsameth]

I don't think it's that simple. The intent has to be to hide something. What is this something? What was worth hiding? The report found pretty little that would be worth hiding - the vol 1 does not contain much. And if it is unclear whether there was anything worth hiding, Trump firing Comey and saying that he did so to make the Russia investigation go away is just Trump firing Comey because he thinks the Russia investigation is a waste of time and being tired of people trying to dig dirt on him where there is none.

Obstruction of Justice does not require an underlying crime.

[Elegiac]

Can we close this now that the mueller investigation is officially a conspiracy theory?

Given that there are ongoing aspects of the investigation and the unredacted report has not been released; no.

Watergate proper took two years and likely would have gone on longer if Nixon hadn't resigned. So no, you don't get to bury this very public demonstration of Trump's repugnance.

[Grapemask]

Can we close this now that the mueller investigation is officially a conspiracy theory?

Are you... are you suggesting that Mueller and his investigation did not exist?

[Dontrike]

You want a summary in less than 48 hours of the report being available for public review? Impossible!

You were the same person that said it was acceptable Barr did the same thing in the same period of time. Weird how it's too hard now, but so easy before.

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I think both sides of Congress is guilty of wasting time when more important issues need their attention.

There are pages of you saying this exact line. What are these "more important issues"?

[Breccia]

Just a reminder of the evidence that led to this in the first place.

The Mueller report isn’t actually close to a full account of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. That’s not just because of the redactions. When he was hired, Mr. Mueller inherited supervision of an F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation. That is the missing piece of the Mueller report.

President Trump may claim “exoneration” on a narrowly defined criminal coordination charge. But a counterintelligence investigation can yield something even more important: an intelligence assessment of how likely it is that someone — in this case, the president — is acting, wittingly or unwittingly, under the influence of or in collaboration with a foreign power. Was Donald Trump a knowing or unknowing Russian asset, used in some capacity to undermine our democracy and national security?

The public Mueller report alone provides enough evidence to worry that America’s own national security interests may not be guiding American foreign policy.

The counterintelligence investigation is not necessarily complete, but from the glimpses we see in the Mueller report, it should set off very serious national security alarm bells.

The article goes on to say
1) No, there's no smoking gun such as an email from Putin demanding Trump fire Comey, and
2) Yes, there was enough evidence to warrant (literally) an investigation in the first place.

Unwitting assets pose their own dangers. They have significant vulnerabilities that can be exploited with minimal actual coordination. In other words, they look and act more like puppets.

In the following examples, Mr. Trump appears a potentially unwitting but responsive asset for Moscow, a finding in which there seems greater confidence:

Mr. Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn reassures Russia that United States sanctions for election interference will be reversed, then lies about his conversation to the F.B.I. Mr. Trump publicly applauds Mr. Putin’s lack of retaliation for the sanctions.

Mr. Trump pursues a potentially lucrative Trump Tower Moscow project through the end of the campaign and at least implicitly encourages his lawyer to lie to Congress about the timing of the deal.

The stark reality is that one might have a moderate to high confidence that decisions are being made by an American president who, in the process of getting elected and after assuming office, has acted with the interests of an often-hostile foreign power influencing him.

And that conclusion is deeply worrisome as a national security matter.

A failure by political leaders to condemn the activities of a Trump campaign that openly welcomed Russian hacking and privately encouraged timely releases of damaging information about the campaign’s opponent would put our nation at further risk.

As president, Mr. Trump has taken a series of steps at home and abroad that advance Russian policy interests. At home, he has weakened American democracy, all but paralyzed our ability to act through legislation and vilified key institutions — particularly law enforcement and the intelligence community. Abroad, Mr. Trump has weakened NATO, given Russia an increasingly free hand in Syria, minimized sanctions against Russian actors, questioned America’s commitment to protecting Eastern Europe from Russian aggression and defended Mr. Putin on the world stage.

It’s hard to look toward the 2020 election with anything but concern — we have not come far enough to protect the democratic process from the threat of foreign election interference, and one reason may well be that the man in the Oval Office has been compromised and continues to be influenced, wittingly or otherwise, by a Kremlin eager to see the United States remain vulnerable.

[Gorsameth]

Just a reminder of the evidence that led to this in the first place.



The article goes on to say
1) No, there's no smoking gun such as an email from Putin demanding Trump fire Comey, and
2) Yes, there was enough evidence to warrant (literally) an investigation in the first place.

Ehm, the FBI counter intelligence investigation is covered by Volume 1 of the report?

[Draco-Onis]

Are you... are you suggesting that Mueller and his investigation did not exist?

The fuhrer is now saying that the investigation that completely exonerated him is now all bs so the lemmings are all falling in line.

[rda]

Obstruction of Justice does not require an underlying crime.

Are you sure? In the law background in the report it is said that "obstruction" is about "an effect that prevents justice from being duly administered". But if there's no crime, what's there to administer?

Which specific statement in law or which specific case do you have in mind when saying that "obstruction of justice does not require an underlying crime"? Who said that? Is it true?

[Noxx79]

Are you sure? In the law background in the report it is said that "obstruction" is about "an effect that prevents justice from being duly administered". But if there's no crime, what's there to administer?

Which specific statement in law or which specific case do you have in mind when saying that "obstruction of justice does not require an underlying crime"? Who said that? Is it true?

“Exonerating” a person is justice. If the evidence was pointing towards exoneration, then preventing that investigation would be obstruction.

[rda]

I'll detail, this is not only about "an obstructive act", but also about "a nexus between the obstructive act and an official proceeding", the second requirement. There should be an official proceeding either in progress or contemplated to be obstructed. Yet we see from vol 1 that there's pretty little for Trump to fear. So how do you establish that there was a nexus to the proceeding given that there was no proceeding that Trump had a reason to obstruct? That Trump is jumping randomly ruining things is not news, but that's not obstruction unless you show 1-2-3 and all of 1-2-3 seem problematic.

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“Exonerating” a person is justice. If the evidence was pointing towards exoneration, then preventing that investigation would be obstruction.

So, your position is that Trump obstructed an investigation that was going to exonerate him? Knowingly (that's also a requirement)? This is just illogical, he has no reason to do so. Consequently, I suspect it will be pretty difficult to defend this position.